Online Holiday Spending Surpasses $21 Billion So Far In The U.S.

We knew that it’s been a ridiculously good holiday season for online retail sales, but comScore has provided a new update today about the first 32 days of the November-December season, and the amount of money being spent online in the U.S. is up 14% year-over-year, according to the firm. For the time period, sales have hit $21.4 billion.

The most recent week saw three separate days surpass $1 billion in spending, led by Cyber Monday, which was the heaviest online spending day in in history. Things did slow down a bit after that though.

“While Cyber Monday was a high point for holiday e-commerce spending and Cyber Week saw several strong spending days, there was a clear softening in the growth rate during the back half of the week,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “It is likely that, to some extent, holiday spending was pulled forward to the Thanksgiving-Black Friday period given the heightened promotional activity around that time. And some of the softening is a natural post-Cyber Monday lull that we often experience, an effect that may be somewhat more pronounced this year given the additional shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, as the urgency to finish one’s holiday shopping increases we expect to see growth rates pick up again in the next couple of weeks before Christmas.”

“That we are seeing growth come from an increase in both the number of buyers and the average spending per buyers suggests broad-based strength in the e-commerce sector,” said Fulgoni. “It reflects not only the health of the e-commerce channel as more people buy online, but also the health of the consumer who has been willing to spend more online this year than last. It’s particularly noteworthy that half of the online population has made an e-commerce purchase thus far in the holiday season”

The number of buyers is up by 9% to 128.7 million, and the average spending per buyer is up by 5% to $165.90.